Take, therefore, what modern technology is capable of: the power of our moral sense allied to the power of communications and our ability to organize internationally. That, in my view, gives us the first opportunity as a community to fundamentally change the world.

Britain should be the world's number one center for genetic and stem cell research, building on our world leading regulatory regime in the area.

Each year India and China produce four million graduates compared with just over 250,000 in Britain.

I am not going to make decisions based on barricades and blockades, nor am I going to make decisions based on the short-term volatility of the oil price.

No one should be held back from realising their potential by fears that they will not be able to afford to go to university or that they will graduate with unmanageable levels of debt.

Sometimes it takes a crisis for people to agree that what is obvious and should have been done years ago, can no longer be postponed. We must create a new international financial architecture for the global age.

I believe there is a moral sense and a global ethic that commands attention from people of every religion and every faith, and people of no faith. But I think what's new is that we now have the capacity to communicate instantaneously across frontiers right across the world.